The Poacher
by robinwitch1
Summary: [Elder Scrolls Online story, set 1000 years before Skyrim.] Molag Bal wants Tamriel. But he isn't the only Daedric Prince who has called dibs on the mortal world, and his rivals are not happy. Two brothers from Dawnstar make a trip into the mountains to gather snowberries, and find themselves swept up in a plot by one of Molag Bal's Daedric rivals to frustrate his plans.


**The Poacher**

_An Elder Scrolls Online tale_

She was already dying when we finally got her to shelter, too frozen and battered and exhausted to have any hope of remaining alive. Nothing we could have done. My kid brother Sven knows a few Restoration spells, and I've seen enough frostbite and winter wounds to know how to treat them, but she was far beyond anything either of us could deal with. She was pretty badly banged up in other ways as well, and had lost a lot of blood. What was really surprising was that she was still alive, and woke up, lucid, before the end. She should have been two or three different ways dead long before. But I'll get to that in a moment.

The two of us, Sven and I, had been up in the mountains to the south of Dawnstar harvesting snowberries, for the most part – not a lot else to find up there during the winter – but we were really more interested in troll fat, providing we could find any snow trolls that we could be sure of killing before they killed us. The troll fat was good money, and good luck for us as well. The local Ebonheart commander in Dawnstar is a pompous Nord, and the endless cold has left his perpetually morose Dark Elf wife suffering from a chronic cough best treated by some disgusting concoction that has troll fat as its main ingredient. Of course, His Lordship doesn't fancy chasing trolls over the mountainsides himself, especially in the dead of winter, and he's got enough wit to realize it would be a bad idea to try to get his soldiers to do it for him. Which is where we come in. We get it and sell it to him cheap, and in return he keeps "forgetting" that we two able-bodied young men are unaccountably neglecting to do our duty to our lords and masters as part of the Ebonheart rank and file. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

We had gone a bit further than usual up the mountain that day. Trolls seem to be getting scarcer every year. We never go further than we need to, though. There are things up on the high slopes that it's not wise to be curious about. Mundus stones – they won't do you any harm, though they've never done me or mine any good, either – but caves too, and animal dens, and shrines to Powers whose names you'll never hear from the lips of your local priest of Mara or Kynareth. Occasionally, when the snow and mist clears for a moment, we see tiny dark shapes in the distance of people moving up the paths, but we keep well clear and never try to find out who they are and what brings them. Knowing things like that – there's no money or advantage in it, only unnecessary risk. And avoiding unnecessary risk is the best way to be sure you'll live long enough to make the acquaintance of your grandchildren.

Anyway, the day that all this began, it was late afternoon and we were working our way slowly along a mountainside, following a path marked years and years ago by gods know who, a path that ended in a long stone staircase. There was some sort of shrine or statue at the top, but we'd never gone all the way up to see. Didn't feel like sticking our necks out. Pretty sure there were no snowberries there, anyway, we told ourselves.

The weather was foul, snow falling and a lot of dry powder blowing about in a strong wind. Most of the time we could hardly be sure of what was three spans in front of us, but as we got to a point near where we usually turn around and head back home, the wind dropped suddenly and we could see all the way up the path ahead. And for a moment, wished that we couldn't, that the wind and snow had kept the curtain drawn.

There was a frost troll up there, moving fast along the path in our direction, scrambling over the ice and snow, snarling. By itself, that was more than enough bad news. That part of the trail is like a pipe, a narrow path on a ledge between a steep slope on the left and a precipice on the right. If the troll had been any closer, and coming for us, we would probably have taken our chances with the precipice rather than wait for it to reach us. Face one of those beasts head on, no advantage of surprise or heavy weaponry, and it'll be the troll standing at the end, not you. Standing _on_ you, more likely than not, looking its lunch over and licking its lips, not that you're liable to be in any shape to care about what it may or may not be doing.

But it turned out that today, we weren't on the menu. Someone else was. Or that's what we first assumed when we saw the whole scene. Didn't turn out quite that way in the end.

Barely in front of the troll, in a desperate, flailing run, there was a young woman, long arms and legs, long pale hair loose over her shoulders, clothing far too light for the place and the season. She must have been in pretty good shape, but she was stumbling on frozen feet, and the troll was gaining on her, quickly. Sven drew his sword and started forward, but I caught his arm and pulled him back. We were far too far away to be any good to her, unless we'd had a heavy bow or crossbow, and far too close to the troll to be healthy. Best we slip away while the troll was busy killing her, I whispered to Sven. She was deader than a draugr, nothing we could do about that, but we could use the distraction her death would provide to make our own escape. Nasty, it sounds, especially after the fact, but under normal circumstances any other choice would certainly have ended up no better for her, and a lot worse for us.

Then, a scream. The troll had finally gotten close enough to backhand her, a glancing blow, but enough to knock her off her feet and down the path into a snowbank. At least that put a bit of distance between them for a moment or two. She should have died right there and then, but the troll had used too much force in its stumbling swipe and nearly lost its footing. It hesitated a moment, to regain its balance, just a little bit too long. The woman's hands went to her belt, and we saw the flash of a blade.

"Dagger?" Sven blurted out, in astonishment. Not even a short sword, I could see. The blade had an eerie glitter, but it didn't seem to be much longer than her fingers. Some anonymous girl wasn't likely to be carrying a weapon with an enchantment strong enough to stop a troll in its tracks. And nobody in or out of their right mind fights trolls with daggers. The best enchantment in the world is no damn use if the blade's too short to reach the target before it rips your arm off. Was she gambling on a lucky hit? Or was she just trying to get the troll pissed off enough to ensure it would finish her quickly?

She had nerve, that much I could see. She launched herself straight at the troll as soon as the blade was out and pointing forward, even though her two-handed grip appeared clumsy – frostbitten fingers, no doubt. I looked away. Sven told me later he had shut his eyes. We both waited through a silence that seemed to go on forever for the next, and final, scream.

It didn't come.

Instead, there was an unearthly, gurgling shriek, from the troll, not the girl. You can imagine what you please in the death-cry of an animal, but I'm sure there was as much shock in that howl as pain. And something else was mixed with the animal noise carried on the wind, words and a burst of what seemed to be laughter. Not a girl's voice, Sven said later, not a human voice at all. Not a human laugh. I got the same impression. But we were too far away to be sure, or to make out what the other voice might have said.

When we ventured to look again, the troll was on its back, sprawled across the trail, dead as dead could be, with the dagger still stuck in its chest, the pommel stone at the base of the handle glinting briefly in a ray of light from the late afternoon sun that had momentarily broken through the clouds. The snow around the troll was slippery red with blood. The girl, who had fallen to her knees, tried to get back onto her feet, but stumbled and collapsed again, next to the body of her victim. She lay there in its blood, and hers, and did not move.

Sven and I stared at each other for a long moment, both of us stunned. Full-grown frost trolls never die from a single hit, even on a vital spot, even with an enchanted weapon. What we'd just seen was impossible. Then we snapped out of our trance and remembered the girl, and hurried down the path to find out what was going on, and what if anything could be done for her.

-o-o-o-

She lived till nearly midnight, most of the time unconscious, but as I said, she woke up in the hunter's shelter we carried her to an hour or so before the end and was able to respond to some of our questions. She was an Imperial, that much we could see, and we assumed she had come from Cyrodiil, but she wouldn't speak of her family or where exactly she had been living. She wouldn't even tell us her name, and she had been carrying no letters or documents.

I asked her what she was doing so far from home, in Skyrim, high in the northern mountains, and she replied with a feeble impatience that it was not her choice, she had been sent there. That she was on her master's business, and that it was urgent, more urgent than anything else, more important than her own welfare, or even her life. _On her master's business_: she repeated that several times, as if it said everything we needed to know about her identity and explained where we had found her. But she wouldn't say who or where her master was, or what business he had sent her on, only shaking her head stubbornly, seemingly exasperated by our failure to understand. She gave the same answer when we asked why she had been so lightly dressed and why she had been alone. Sven asked her if her mission, whatever it was, had been a success, and she replied in a whisper, "I succeeded. And I failed. My success is my only comfort. For my failure, I will seek forgiveness." She turned her face to the side and refused to respond to anything for several minutes after that.

Her mission, whatever it had been, must have had something to do with her weapon, the dagger that we had pulled out of the troll's heart and returned to the scabbard on her belt. The first thing that she did when she woke up was to fumble for it, and she didn't settle down until she had it close to her again, holding it between the palms of her hands, since her fingers were bandaged and useless with frostbite. We'd given it a look before she came to, and it had puzzled us both. Nothing about it especially caught the eye, nothing was clearly out of the ordinary, but the thing as a whole was...odd. Gave us an uneasy feeling. As if it were _watching_ you, Sven said. It was superbly balanced, and the edge was sharper than anything we'd ever seen – you just had to tap your finger against it to draw blood. No markings or symbols or inscriptions on the blade or handle, but there was a strange glyph on the scabbard, one that neither of us had ever seen before. Like the entrance of a cave, an arch with a dot in the center. Her mark? Or that of her master? Perhaps if we take it up to Winterhold next spring, I remember thinking, when traveling will be easier, we'll find a mage who can tell us the meaning.

-o-o-o-

A few minutes before she died, the girl began to sob, quietly but steadily. I've seen it before. When the darkness begins to gather at the edge of your vision, and everything keeps on getting colder and quieter, and you can't lie to yourself any longer that it's nothing but sleep coming on. She'd at last realized that this rough cot in a tiny hut was the end, that she would never see anything more than this, never speak to anyone other than us. Never feel the coming of another spring, or summer, or autumn. Never see the sun rise again.

She was braver than a lot of people that I've seen make this last passage. She didn't scream or beg or plead, or demand we cure her, or try to strike some bargain with one of the Powers for another year or week or day of life. Or curse herself, or berate others for not having been quicker to rescue her. She kept her dignity. But she couldn't quite overcome the sadness of it all. Neither could we.

We sat beside the cot where she could see us easily without having to move her head, and waited. Sven bent over her every so often to wipe the tears from her face. We all come to this some day, but most of us not so soon. At least she wouldn't have to go into the darkness alone, with no one by her side. That was some comfort, to her, I hope. Certainly it was to us, even though it wasn't for the reasons we thought at the time.

Sven bent over to wipe her face again, and this time, she raised one of her ruined hands to pull him closer. She whispered something to him, they exchanged a few words, and he nodded and smiled. She smiled back, a tiny ghost of a smile, but enough to make it clear how beautiful she must have been before all this had entered and ended her life.

Despite my determination to see her through, I had been dozing and failed to fully register her exchange with Sven until her head sank back onto her pillow. Sven reached over and closed her eyes, and I realized that she was dead.

With a look that was half-apologetic, half-sheepish, Sven glanced at me and said, "She had a last request for me. Didn't seem to be anything harmful. But it was an odd one." He wasn't all that eager to meet my gaze.

I just looked at him and silently prayed he hadn't done anything stupid. Sven is sharp and he usually keeps his feet on the ground, but he's too sentimental for his own good, and for mine. From a dying woman, once beautiful, a mysterious stranger his own age? It was hard to imagine a request he _wouldn't_ promise to honor. I kicked myself for not having been more alert.

"So what was it?"

I tried to make the question offhand, casual, and failed miserably.

Sven continued to avoid my gaze and mumbled some reply. I just stared at him over the girl's dead body. I was too tired to ask questions. I'd hear about it soon enough, I knew.

After a few moments, he spoke more clearly.

"She was crying because... she said that when she was a little girl she had always looked forward to getting married... her parents were a good pair, everyone envied them... to be together with someone else seemed like heaven, like the key to happiness, she said... but now she was going to die and she had never had a husband or a family of her own... it was far too late for a family of course but..."

"Mara's mercy, Sven. _Don't_ tell me you agreed to marry her."

"Um... doesn't mean much, I'd say. Shortest trothpledge on record. Marital bliss lasted all of ten minutes. She's the Dread Lord's bride now. It just made it a bit easier for her right at the end."

"_Her_ end. _We're_ still here. For us, it might mean it's just beginning. It doesn't just make you her late husband, you know. You're her sole heir as well. And we don't know to _what_. Yet."

"I hadn't thought of that."

I grunted, more in exasperation than surprise.

"Really? You don't say? Better start praying that there's nothing to think of."

But there would be, I was sure. And not only for Sven. Our lost, hunted, deceased stranger was family now. Dead doesn't change that. I'd acquired a sister-in-law as my share of the deal, and I didn't even know her name. That bothered me most of all, for some reason.

Then, because it was past midnight and there was nothing else left to do, we wrapped ourselves in our blankets and lay on the floor, one each side of the dead woman's body on the cot, and went to sleep.

-o-o-o-

We both dreamed.

Or perhaps not "dreamed." Perhaps "traveled" would be the better word, all things considered.

In my dream, I was standing on a broken plain of volcanic sand and jagged lumps of black glass, with a mountain slope rising steeply behind me, and a line of towers and walls in the middle distance ahead. The fortifications ran to the left and the right as far as the eye could see, but they appeared derelict, the towers leaning at odd angles, the walls cracked and fissured. I was alone, and I couldn't see a single door or gate anywhere, or any other living thing. The only sound was the thin whistle of a hot, dusty wind; the only light came from a red sky with black clouds moving across it in an endless stream.

Then the laughter began, and the shouting. It was the same laughter and shouting I had heard when the troll had been struck dead, but this time it wasn't just a single burst of sound but went on and on, at first faint, but steadily increasing in volume. It appeared to be coming from somewhere in the fortifications. But no matter how loud it grew, I still couldn't make out what it was trying to say. It began to echo, unnaturally empty and hollow as it bounced off the towers and the walls, and I became more and more uneasy.

I turned to examine the slope behind me. It was steep, but climbable with a little care. There seemed to be a door about half-way up, a smooth black surface with that strange cave-mouth glyph carved into it in red, the glyph on the scabbard of the dagger. I scrambled up, pushed the door open, and stumbled inside without thinking or even looking ahead of me, as much to get away from the voice and the laughter as anything else.

Well, as far as banishing that unearthly cacophony was concerned, my move was a definite success: there was absolute silence all around me as soon as the door slammed shut. But in the passage that followed, the walls and floor were glassy smooth and angled steeply downward. The faint light near the door quickly faded as I slid down, scrabbling for a hold, until finally I was falling unchecked through an absolute blackness.

I don't remember how my fall ended. I suppose that I must have lost consciousness. When I came to myself again, I still could not see a thing, whether from damage to my eyes or the mere absence of light, I could not guess. The only one of my senses that was still giving a picture of the outside world was touch. I seemed to be lying full-length on my back on a stone slab. Movement turned out to be impossible, though I did not seem to be bound or otherwise restrained. For the time being, all I could do was wriggle a bit and await developments.

Then I heard footsteps coming in my direction, the click of heels on what sounded like a bare stone floor. They approached my head, and stopped, and I had that strange feeling you sometimes get when someone you can't see is looking you over closely. I sensed that the figure had stopped, and knew it must be very close, but I still couldn't move my own head. I had a pretty good idea who it must be, though, and decided to run with it.

"Greetings, sister. Where is this place, and how do you come to be here?"

A happy little laugh of surprise and delight. I had guessed correctly; it was my new kinswoman, or whatever remained of her, and the "sister" had been what she most wanted to hear. Then a short pause. She was thinking, I suppose, about what and how much to tell me.

"Welcome to my Master's dominion, brother-in-law. But titles seem too formal, even the titles we use within the family. It's just that I never got the chance to ask you and my husband your names before I had to depart. My name is Mila. Mila Navale, from before I took service under my Master, when I was young and still a living mortal. Just Mila now. Mortal loyalties and lineages mean nothing here; our Master is parent to us all."

"If you knew where you were going, that night, why did you cry so much? I thought you were simply frightened of dying, like most people would be."

Another pause, longer this time and more... pensive, if that makes any sense at all in this context.

"I _was_ frightened, so terribly frightened," she began in a low voice, and then hesitated again. "I thought I had failed. My very first task in His service, and I had failed. But my Master has sent word to me through His servants that all took place as he foresaw, and that I have done well, done what He needed to have done. His rightful dominion over Tamriel has been brought one step closer, even by deeds that to us mortals seem very small and without significance. But then He sees into the future so much more clearly than any of us."

_His dominion over Tamriel_? That phrase chilled me to the bone. All those frozen months chasing trolls so that we wouldn't be conscripted and sent into the field against the Daedra. Now it looked as if we'd landed right in the lap of Molag Bal. And just to top it off, married into his "family."

But, as usual, I was wrong. Just as wrong as I had been when I had guessed her tears in the mountain shelter came from a simple fear of death. I had no sooner whispered the name of the Lord of Domination than Mila snorted with derision. I thought I heard the swish of her long blond hair as she tossed it back. Her reply was dripping with contempt.

"Molag Bal? _That_ ugly piece of work? Stands so tall and looks so proud, but beside my Master and his power, he's nothing but a _rat_ running from barrel to box in the palace basement. He has no business with Tamriel. He has no right to be there. He's a damned _thief_ – a poacher."

My mind was a blank. Try as I might, I couldn't think of anyone or any entity who would call the Lord of Domination a rat or a thief. Words like that were insults you threw at your inferiors. They went beyond fear or hatred. But who was in a lofty enough position to look down on Molag Bal?

"I'm sorry for being so blunt about it," Mila continued. "I should speak of Molag Bal as one of my Master's kin, and not insult him, even when he offends against us. My Master takes the whole affair calmly, I am told, even though He is determined to put Molag Bal back in his proper place, not trying to steal from my Master. But it's personal for me, and my Master does not object. I cannot abide the King of Rape. You'll understand better once you know something of my story."

She paused again, I think to gather her strength, before beginning to relate her own past. It was nightmarish, even for an age of disorder. Her childhood had been ordinary enough, on an isolated farm in northern Cyrodiil, and her parents had been wholly admirable people who loved her and loved each other, just as she had said to Sven. But when she was twelve years old, bandits had killed her parents and kidnapped her. They'd raped her until she nearly bled to death, gotten her pregnant before her thirteenth birthday, and then beaten her until she miscarried. She'd tried to hang herself, but they'd discovered her, cut her down, and then used the rope from around her neck to tie her to a tabletop so that they could do what they pleased to her without interruption. She had been a sex slave in the bandit den for almost seven years. She lived locked in a small cage underground, only leaving it when one or more of them dragged her out to service them. Most of the rest of the time, she lay curled up in a fetal position on the floor of her cell, naked or near-naked ("clothes would just get torn off anyway," she said), her back to the barred door.

"I suppose they thought they had broken me," Mila said, in a quiet voice. "If it had been me alone, they would have been right. But the grace of my Master was already strong in me, though still unsuspected, giving me the strength and patience to face my trials."

"I first became conscious of the service of my Master from a fellow prisoner," she continued. "He was in a cage next to me for a few days. He whispered to me that He had already accepted me under his care, that if I were loyal to Him, I could hope to reach the light, even after death. No matter how dark it was now, he said, one day we would have dominion over all of Tamriel as His trusted ones, His family.

"He told me that the bandits were holding him because they thought he knew the location of one of the secret centers of my Master's worship on Tamriel, and greedy and ignorant as they were, they hoped to rob it. But he would not tell them, he said. I listened carefully to him when he said this, and saw the strength in his eyes, and realized that it was not a boast but a simple statement of fact.

"And indeed, they learned nothing from him. Three days after we had talked, they came for him and hung him by the arms from a beam, and began to tear his skin off in long strips, demanding he give them the information they sought. He didn't. He only groaned now and again, and in truth the groan sounded more like a yawn than a cry of pain. In their frustration and rage, the bandits stripped him and did the filthiest things anyone could imagine to him. They prayed to Vaermina, Lady of Torment, to increase his agonies ten and twenty-fold, but all was useless. He was under the protection of a Power beyond anything they could bring to bear. They ended up blindly tearing his body into small pieces, but by then he had returned to our Master's dominion and was laughing at them from afar. He had told them nothing, nothing at all. And he had left me his faith and his example as the instrument of his revenge. His revenge, and mine."

"How long after that did you escape the bandit lair?" I asked.

"Ten weeks or so," Mila replied. "Once my mind was strengthened by faith, and I had put despair behind me, it was not difficult to find a way out. Often, they were very drunk when they forced themselves on me. It was child's play to steal keys and lockpicks from them when they were in that state, daggers, coins... everything I needed. Even if they noticed the loss, they never thought to suspect me. I was just another domestic animal to them, curled up naked in the straw of my cage, there to give sex the way a chicken was there to give eggs or a cow to give milk. They didn't search the chickens if they lost their keys, and they didn't search me either. Besides, they were always losing things and stealing from each other.

"I could have left almost at once, but there were preparations to make first. You can guess what shape I was in after six years of that life. My arms and legs were like matchsticks. My fellow prisoner warned me...he told me to exercise before making any attempt to escape, or I wouldn't get ten feet. So I had to do that, too, when no one was watching... and the exercise made me hungry, so I had to sneak out and steal food... it was lucky that I had an excuse if I were seen outside my cell, I could say I was going back to my cell after "serving" someone... they'd seen me often enough that way, staggering along in blind pain with half a dozen of them and my own blood dripping out of me onto the floor... I began to wash myself more often, too, telling them that the chief had said I stank too bad to screw... the chief was drunk so often that he wouldn't remember whether he had said that or not, and besides, they were all terrified of him and wouldn't be asking him questions that they didn't have to. I began to look for where things were kept, where I could find clothes and weapons and food and money when I left. I felt... it was the first time that I had felt alive since I was taken. Before, I had been an insect in a spider's web, tied and helpless for the spider to feed on as it would. Now, I was the spider, and everyone in the lair was my prey, _and they didn't even know it_."

She was silent for a long time after she got to this point in her story. I think she was luxuriating in that feeling again, the joy of the hunted animal that suddenly turns on its hunters and savages them. Finally, I asked,

"So you just crept out one night and disappeared, along with everything you could carry? What was your destination?"

She laughed.

"After all those years underground, you mean? Well, I did have _some_ idea of the outside world. I'd been raped on the map table more than once. They talked a lot as well, and never seemed to notice if I were there. I knew in a general way where we were and what the route was to the nearest towns. But it turned out to be simpler than that.

"Our part of Cyrodiil was a sort of no-man's-land, but the week before I planned to depart, a large raiding party from the Ebonheart forces camped just north of the caves the bandits occupied. The bandits were all ordered to lie low, since there was no sense in fighting regulars – the soldiers didn't have much loot, and were much better armed than civilian travelers would be. Most of the lookouts were pulled back into the cave until the Ebonheart unit left the area, and no one was allowed to go out, for any reason. That meant the cave was crowded, and people quarreled constantly, but they were too preoccupied with their own problems to notice what the camp whore was doing. They forced me to have sex, of course, whenever they pleased, with half a dozen of them in a row or two or three at once – but I almost didn't mind at that point. I would be gone soon, and they would feel my revenge soon after. They were dead men walking."

"So you just made a run for the Ebonheart camp then, and got directions from them?" I said. "Quick thinking. I suppose you told them about the bandits too, and they took revenge for you."

"I planned to do more or less that... but it turned out differently. And better. By the night I escaped, the bandits were on the verge of killing each other. Over the previous week or so, I had concentrated on stealing things from them when they were drunk, mostly coin, but amulets and the like as well – things that would be missed by their owners. They all assumed it was another bandit doing the stealing, and swore to kill the thief when they found him. It was funny to hear them howling at each other, night and day. The chief beat up one cheeky follower right in front of my cage, and when the fellow collapsed into a few minutes of unconsciousness, I crept out and stole all the rings from his fingers. When he woke up, he noticed his loss at once and flung himself on another bandit who had come in to get me for sex, assuming that the other bandit was the thief. They struggled with each other all the way down the hall, until there was a roar and the sound of a few heavier blows, and then silence. They must have run into the chief, who had settled the quarrel the way he managed most disputes, by knocking both of them down.

"I drifted off to sleep for a while, I think, and by the time I woke it was early morning, an hour or two before first light. Outside the bars it was dark and silent; many of the lamps had gone out, and everyone seemed to be asleep. I moved quickly. I put on warm clothing and a suit of light armor, sorted through my collection of keys, and removed a sword from a glass case in a locked treasure room, one whose blade flickered with tiny sparks when you swung it. It turned out to be a very good weapon, able to send a killing shock through the bodies of those it struck in battle, though at the time I took it mostly because I thought it was pretty. I found a leather helmet in the treasure room as well, one that glowed faintly red and gave me a strange but comfortable feeling when I put it on. Later, I was told that it was heavily enchanted to increase my health. There was a pair of leather boots that glowed green as well; I put them on, even though they were a bit large for me, and did not notice anything different at first, but I continued to wear them. I filled a small pack with amulets and jewelery, including a number of magical rings and necklaces, though I did not know their powers at the time. I took what seemed to be the most expensive things I could manage without overloading myself. When I left the treasure room, I realized that my feet were making no sound at all, and guessed, correctly as it turned out, that the boots must have a stealth enchantment.

"Finally, there was a dagger that caught my eye – the one that I killed the troll with, the one that my husband has inherited. It was damaged when I found it. The pommel stone was broken and the edges were dulled, even though the point remained extremely sharp. Something about it interested me, and it still seemed a good weapon for a swift stab to someone's heart, so I carried it unsheathed in my right hand as I made my way to the entrance, pausing on occasion to rob some sleeping bandit of a sparkling trifle.

"Right at the entrance to the cave, there was an ancient stone chair left there by the original occupants. In this chair, the bandit chief was slumped, snoring faintly, dead to the world. No doubt he had felt himself drifting off to sleep, and had positioned himself where he would be instantly alerted if someone tried to beat the front door down, or even open it. Smart fellow.

"But not smart enough to die in his own bed of old age. Should have left me alone, I muttered to myself as I looked him over. Shouldn't have killed my mother. Shouldn't have killed my father. Shouldn't have let them do what he and the others had done to me, every day, for more than six years. For a moment I was tempted to cut his thing off, but it would have been too noisy and I would have had to fight too many people. Instead, I leaned over and whispered a final wish into his ear, **_May you burn forever in a fire that never dies_**. Then I repeated a short prayer for my Master's aid that my fellow prisoner had taught me, and drove the knife into the chief's neck.

"The blood sprayed out over my armor as the bandit chief slumped down into the chair. He made no sound as he died, but the kill was not silent. There was a burst of strange laughter, so loud that I feared it might wake the others, and a harsh voice claimed the bandit's soul for my Master. Perhaps it was only in my head that these sounds could be heard, but I heard them clearly. So this strange weapon was my Master's property as well, and I would have the honor of gathering souls with it and then returning it to his keeping.

"I felt a great peace gathering around me, as I stood with the blood of another dripping from me and pooling at my feet, instead of my own blood, as it had always been before. This was why I was here. Everything made sense now. This was my payback for enduring six years of rape and abuse, for my family's murder, for everything that I had suffered. Now, I am protected. I have a Master who will stand by me, now and forever.

"The rest was simple. I slipped out of the front entrance and easily avoided the two sleepy bandits who remained on guard. Then I made my way to the Ebonheart camp. They seemed somehow to be expecting me. I spoke to the commander, and he sent a raiding party back with me to destroy the lair and seize its contents. I went with them, to whisper what was around every corner, to unlock every door. The kills were easy, and their profit enormous, They had to send for the rest of the men from the camp to carry their prizes off and even then they left much behind. I suppose they returned for it later.

"I had asked their advice, and taken maps from the bandit lair, so while they were busy looting I slipped away and began the long journey to where you met me. I found my armor too heavy and my boots too large, and discarded them, traveling light, forgetting how cold the mountains are, for I had to reach my Master's shrine and return his artifact to Him. It's at the top of those stairs you have never dared climb, did you know? You've always known. Just as you knew before that it was not yet time to ascend and speak with our Master face to face.

"Our Master repaired the dagger, his artifact, with his magic. It was good to see His power on display. Then He returned it to me and told me to go back down the mountain until I met those I was to give it to. You know the rest. The weapon is where it should be, and it will be my husband and you, my brother, who take it on the next stage of its journey, wherever that leads. I have played my part, and now my Master calls me to other tasks. Blessed be His name and deeds, forevermore."

At this point, Mila fell silent. Perhaps she was exhausted from the telling – her tone had been exultant, almost ecstatic, whenever she had spoken of her faith. She had had a religious experience, it was clear, something that had lifted her beyond or outside herself and could not be discussed on a rational level. I've never liked to get too close to that sort of thing. True believers are tricky to handle, even in the land of the living. Gods alone knew what would happen next.

And gods alone knew who her Master was. I still hadn't figured that out.

I decided to ask her directly, even though that might brand me a fool.

"Mila? I wonder if I could ask you a question, sister. You've mentioned your Master many times, and it does seem that he has watched over you with care and protected you from dangers. But neither I nor Sven have much book learning, and what few teachers we had would never discuss any Powers other than the Eight Divines. I recognized some of the names in your story, like that of Lady Vaermina, but I don't connect much with any of them. We hunt, we fish, we gather vegetables and fruit and alchemy materials, but we have no traffic with higher beings. So, sister, I hope this question does not offend you but... who is your Master, this Master that you speak of? And what connection does he have with Tamriel? When you said your Master is the true Lord of Tamriel, I put forward the name of Molag Bal, which you rejected. I was very glad to hear that, but who or what is this Power that is mighty enough to look down with scorn on the Lord of Domination? What does he want from us? And if he is the true ruler of Tamriel, why are we now being invaded by Molag Bal?"

A _long_ silence. Then Mila replied, "I will have to be brief. You have little time left in this realm before you awaken." She laughed, a little-girl giggle that reminded me how young she had been when this had begun. "You may have forgotten, but you are here in spirit, not in body, and will depart the instant your dream ends. You will return, but perhaps not for many years, perhaps not for decades. I am sure you are part of my Master's plan, as is my husband, as am I. He will have tasks for you in the mortal world."

Well then. My opinions on the matter were apparently beside the point. Nothing like being part of someone's plan, I thought ruefully. An honor I could have gladly done without...

"Our Master goes by many titles, for a single appellation would be altogether insufficient to capture his true glory. He comprehends both creation and ruin, setting up and tearing down, pride and humility. He is Lord of Ambition, Change, Energy, Revolution, and Destruction."

"Men call him Mehrunes Dagon, Lord of Destruction, but this is only one of his aspects. He respects and encourages the ambitious, if they revere and obey him, and blesses them with His divine Energy. He is my savior and protector, and patron of our great family. We have but to serve Him with full faith, and one day, His Dominion will be ours to enjoy as His faithful officers and servants."

"Molag Bal is a clumsy oaf making a clumsy attempt to steal my Master's property. He has banded with that upstart hedge-wizard Mannimarco, the so-called King of Worms, who pretends the planes of Oblivion and Nirn can be brought together by the use of iron chains and human sacrifice. Imbecile. He hastens only his own ruin. My Master says that the mortal who will frustrate Molag Bal's plans already walks the surface of Nirn, and Molag Bal can do nothing about it, nothing at all. The King of Rape and his halfwitted minion are foredoomed to ruin."

"And our role?" I asked, horrified and fascinated in about equal measure.

"To aid somewhat in the humiliation of Molag Bal, the filthy and hateful King of Rape, and later on help bring about my Master's rightful dominion over Tamriel, by slower and far more subtle means than Molag Bal will ever be able to comprehend. But the second of these tasks is a matter for the distant future. Now, your time here in this realm is up. Blessings of our Master be upon you, and a sister's love. Keep strong in your faith. When the hour is right, you will know what to do."

-o-o-o-

I opened my eyes. It was early dawn, I was back in the shelter, and I could move again. When I raised my head, I could see Mila's left hand resting on the edge of the cot her body occupied. I touched it, and it was ice-cold. She's still dead. But not gone. At least now I know her name, and some of her story. And something of the future she is trying to create for us.

I don't know that I like it much. It's easy to see why Mila worships Dagon and despises Molag Bal. Dagon came to her aid in her hour of need, even if it was in his own interest to do so; Molag Bal has offended Dagon with his invasion of Tamriel, even though Dagon plans to do exactly the same thing some day. And then there's that King of Rape title. No mystery why it infuriates Mila, of course. But is Dagon _really_ any better than Molag Bal in the way he treats mortals, or is Molag Bal just more honest about it?

Still, isn't it always the same for small people like us? Fate decides which side we take in great quarrels, not our own moral judgment. Is the Ebonheart Pact really "better" than the Daggerfall Covenant, or the... whatever those damned elves call their group? Your allegiance depends on chance, where you are born, nothing more rational. Even if you had the opportunity to make your own choice, you'd never get all the information needed to do a good job of it. Might as well just go with whatever side you happen to find yourself on, and hope for the best.

Sven was stirring on the other side of Mila's cot. No doubt he'd had a busy night as well. He hauled himself to his feet and lit one of the lamps. Then he hung it from the ceiling and stood leaning on Mila's cot, studying her face.

I got up and limped over to a chair.

"Did you talk with her as well?" I asked. "I dreamed I was... where she is now, She told me her history, and what she has planned for us. You've married us into quite a family, you know."

Sven looked a bit surprised.

"Well, I suppose... I guess she sees you as the representative of our family, the family elder. Wants to reassure you that she has reasons for what she says and does. We didn't get into that much..."

He paused to think about what to say next. That annoyed me. Was everyone playing a game with everyone else now?

"We talked about personal things. Names for children. Favorite dishes. That sort of thing. She apologized for the scenery in her Master's domain. The broken buildings, the seas of lava. It all needed a lot of work, still, she said. And besides, in the end, we'll be able to return to Tamriel and live there, she added. We wove crowns of bloodgrass for each other, and talked with some of His other servants. Strange creatures, very proud, a bit touchy, but all of them determined. Better than any human soldiers I've ever met. They honor her. It seems that what she did here on Tamriel was a bit out of the ordinary, something they couldn't have done for Him themselves."

He began to smile.

"It seems I've married a princess. Not an important one, but still, someone special. Now, I have to be careful to live up to the family reputation."

"She didn't speak of her own past? How she had come into the worship of Dagon? Why she was here, on this mountain?"

"No... but she did say it was hard for her to be held or touched because of some things that had happened to her before. She goes rigid when you embrace her, and it's a struggle for her to relax. Almost a painful one. She had to warn me this would happen the first few times, or I would have thought she didn't want me close. Then when she does succeed in relaxing, she begins to cry and doesn't stop for a long time. And when she's past that, she needs me _very_ close. Goes almost crazy... Something's happened to her, but I didn't want to ask what, not yet. I suppose she'll tell me one day."

_Probably the day before a battle_, I thought cynically. Or some other major challenge. My clever sister Mila is obviously a past master at tailoring her messages. Maybe that's one of the reasons Dagon values her. She hadn't ever lied, so far as I could tell, but she'd given us both the precise selection of facts and feelings most likely to weave us mind and heart into her Master's cause. For me, it had been explicit details of the dreadful way in which she had been treated by the bandits; for Sven, something much more intimate, as befitted his status as her husband. I wouldn't be surprised if she expects me to tell Sven exactly why she doesn't like to be touched, and deepen his passion still further with sympathy and anger. Another strand in the weave.

Now what? I looked at Sven. He was thinking the same thing.

"Take care of her body, I suppose..." I finally said. "Get it down to Dawnstar and bury it. Better do that ourselves. I'm not sure how Arkay is going to feel about all of this traffic with the Daedra."

"If Arkay feels anything at all. The gods are too far away. We humans have to do the best we can without them."

"Then... keep the dagger safe, and wait until we find out what to do next, I suppose. We'll be passing it on again, but not for a while, she said. If anything unusual happens, we'll know what to do."

We wrapped Mila's body in coarse cloth and bound it along the length of a carrying pole, so that the two of us could handle it easily. Then we tidied up the shelter and maneuvered our load out the door onto the trail.

The sun on the snow dazzled us with its brilliance. After all that time in the dim light of the shelter, it was a while before we could see again. Sven caught my arm and pointed down the trail, towards Dawnstar.

Another frost troll, looking up at us. Nowhere near far enough away for us to ignore. Just what we needed.

The sensible thing to do would have been to go back into the shelter and wait the beast out. The trolls were smart enough not to go near buildings. They knew they'd be speared or shot to death from inside long before they could tear the door down. Hunger, or another hunt, would have the troll miles away by dinnertime. They weren't into setting up ambushes.

But Sven was in no mood, not today. He drew Mila's dagger and began walking down the trail towards the troll. He had only taken a few steps before the beast thought better of engaging him and hastened off in the other direction. We stood and watched it retreat, until finally it turned off the trail onto a side path that led directly down the mountain.

"So much for that," Sven said, and sheathed the dagger. "It'll probably get to the bottom in one piece, but that path is too steep for anything as heavy as a troll to climb up again. It's gone for good."

"Mila told me that she was protected, that she had a Master who would stand by her forever," I said. "I wonder why the troll was able to hurt her, then?"

"Because it was _supposed_ to," Sven replied. "It was determined in advance. She'd met us and would give us the dagger. Her task was finished, and it was time to move on, I expect."

I shivered a bit, and not from the cold air. It was going to take some getting used to, being in the service of someone to whom death meant nothing more than a change of posting would mean to a mortal soldier.

Sven glanced at the sky.

"The weather isn't going to hold forever. It'll be snowing when we get back to Dawnstar. Time for us to be about our Master's business."

So we shouldered Mila's mortal remains and set off down the trail, thinking back over the events of the past day. Both wondering about alternatives, weighing the situation, but both uneasily certain that our future had come to resemble the trail we were following down the mountain, a narrow and determining path that we could depart from only at our peril.

_**the end**_


End file.
